


i know that it hurts like hell

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Triggers, Two Faces of Insomnia, and he gets that hug here tbh, general discussions about a person in distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: Tony loves the fun kind of insomnia. He knows people around him get worried nonetheless but he at least gets to create. Come down from it knowing he achieved something, at least.This is not the fun kind of insomnia.





	i know that it hurts like hell

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why this got so angsty and a little bit dark. Don't look at me, we still cannot figure out how the human brain works. How am I supposed to explain? 
> 
> WARNING: There are general discussions of Tony being in distress and not being under full control of his body, paralysis and such. I am not sure how dark this actually is but I have rated it M for caution because my own understanding of "disturbing" is a little out of whack. While it doesn't seem too dark to me, it might be different for you. So please treat carefully. ILU <3
> 
> This is for the Put On The Suit Discord Bingo, Insomnia square.
> 
> Not beta-ed, if you see mistakes you can point them out.

There is fun kind of insomnia and then, there is  _ this _ . The fun kind is when Tony is up and doing something. In the workshop, under the hood of one of his beloved cars, or working on improvements for the team, or better yet, the suit. It’s the kind of manic energy that refuses to dissipate until he finishes whatever is going through his mind, until he has perfected it. He loves feeling the circuit boards get warm from being held his hands and the welding process. He loves trying to make everything smaller and smaller, trying to fit more and more into the suit. Nothing compares to the feeling he gets after finishing a piece and taking off the magnifying glasses, eyes trying to get used to seeing normal again. When he has buffed all the kinks and stained the plates accordingly, he is the happiest.

Coding. Tony loves coding when he gets like that. It’s like a puzzle that he has to construct and solve at the same time when he’s coding from scratch. Or when he’s going back and back again to the software that collects training data for the Avengers, he loves finding the octothorpe notes he left for himself in the code, Python pushed to its limits. He loves doing shit like muttering “I’m in,” to himself and grinning giddily once his code runs perfectly. Also, he loves calling an octothorpe, an octothorpe.

So the fun kind of insomnia is when he’s munching on dried berries and getting lost on the internet. When he can create and feel relaxed in the end. Finally ready to sleep. He knows it still makes Pep worry about him. Bruce or Steve check on; the former to make sure he’s alive and engage him in conversation to take his mind away from work, the latter to make sure he’s alive _and_ _to_ _bring food_. Which somehow, along the way, became more important than scientific conversations.

But tonight is the exact opposite of the fun kind.

It always catches him unaware. He goes to bed, to the workshop like any other normal day. Sits in the living room or the adjoining kitchen and something just clicks inside of him. Sometimes it’s a sound he mishears, a light suction, a hiss that could have come from any ordinary tupperware but it reminds him of the reactor being taken out just a tad too much. Sometimes it’s a fleeting smell of the water in a mop that reminds him how musty and moldy was the water that was pressed on his face when he was helpless, unable to move, to breathe…

And it refuses to go away, until Tony is bone tired; until he cannot physically do anything else but collapse, unconscious. 

Now Tony is sitting in his own bedroom floor, back pressed into a corner like the paranoid maniac that he is because he cannot- He just simply  _ cannot _ . It always feels like something will come out and grab him and drag him away the moment he drops his guard when it’s like this. He has three blankets wrapped around him and it’s swelteringly hot, so much that his stomach roils but even that doesn’t help to make him feel like he is covered. He has every single light in the room open and on full. The main lights, stand lights, reading lamps, the decorative ones... Hell, he keeps anything that has a light on. Even the phone and the tablet are plugged into a wall, on silent but open. He cannot take being surprised at this moment. He cannot take anything.

And it had gotten better. After Steve. Tony could divide his life in a lot of time stamps. Before and After Howard and Maria’s death. Before and After Afghanistan. Before and After Obie. But he always chooses Steve. He is tired of bad things that he has no control over defining his life. He chose Steve and Steve chose him and damn if it didn’t change his life. Their life, now.

Because Steve understands. He understands much better than Tony ever thought he would. Steve knows what it feels like to wake up and expect to be somewhere else, somewhere bad. 

They both have troubles with water. With drowning. And at first, they bond over that. Then it becomes something else. And Tony will divide his life into two right there. 

But Steve is not here. Steve hasn’t been here for a long time now and Tony hasn’t been this close to Before Steve in a very long time that he is scared. 

He feels like vomiting. It wouldn’t be the first time. He is pretty lucid this time at least, he could bend over or to the side if he actually gets sick. Sometimes, very rarely, it’s a complete mental blackout. Tony goes to another place, it’s almost like an out of body experience. The couple of times that it first happened, J.A.R.V.I.S. had alerted Pepper who was very out of her depth and clearly underqualified to deal with something like that. With a Tony that couldn’t communicate, that couldn’t control his bodily functions. And the hospital trips just made it worse.

Tony forbid J.A.R.V.I.S. from alerting her after a while. 

It was a loop, those times, a loop of bad experiences spurring on the flashbacks more and more. He would come to himself to find that he had pukes, that he had pissed himself. The stench would send him reeling back, physically but also mentally, to dark places again.

He can feel his bladder right now, a pressure low on his abdomen. Tony doesn’t know how long it has been. He cannot speak to J.A.R.V.I.S. with his jaw locked like this, against his will. He is getting hot flashes under the blanket, followed by a tremble that feels like the burning kind of cold. He cannot get up. He cannot move. He kind of wants to stick his own thumbs into his eyes just so that this all would end. He wants to break free, he wants so damn much. He was working on it, he was trying for fucks sake and he had made progress. With Steve. With beautiful, kind, sweet Steve.

But fear clamps down on him like a night terror that he cannot fight. Like paralysis, it takes him over and he cannot shake it off.

This is the first time they have been apart this much since they finally called this thing a relationship. And underneath this entire flashback of terror, Tony is also scared by the fact that this is all it would take to finally break him for good. Steve is on a mission. Time is confusing and abstract and Tony doesn’t know for how long Steve has been gone. If this is a normal amount of time for him to be gone. They must have told him how long the mission would last but Tony cannot remember how long Steve has been gone. How long he has been holed up here. What if something happens to him. What if he never comes back. Tony had so many things taken from him, so many dreams, so many people. He wouldn’t survive-

“Tony?”

Tony doesn’t mean to scream. He hits his head back against the wall, trying to cover himself and thank God for the blankets because if it hurts like this with them-

Kevlar doesn’t smell. Not normally. But Kevlar that has been worn straight through action for a couple of days does. And it lingers. And normally Tony would be complaining, telling Steve he needs to  _ exfoliate _ while Steve rolled his eyes and reached for his regular shower gel but right now he needs to crawl forward and-

“Oh Tony,” Steve says, “I’m here baby, it’s all right.”

And Tony just sobs, curling in Steve’s arms, forehead leaning against the star on his boyfriend’s chest. He cannot make words yet, not now, not when his jaw is so tight that he cannot even feel it anymore. But Steve knows what to do. He speaks so quietly that normally Tony wouldn’t hear him. But Steve knows how everything is amplified when Tony gets like this. He knows because he lives it too. 

Steve rubs his hands all over him. Not in a sexual way, not even in a romantic way but with a firm touch that is almost like a massage that brings Tony back to present. When he touches his face, his neck and jaw relax and he can finally open his mouth to sob. His teeth ache from being clamped together.

They stay until Tony can breathe properly. Until the shivers subside and he is just tired. He is jumpy but he is here. He is painfully aware how much he smells. They both smell.

“Carry me to the bathroom, please,” Tony says. 

“Let’s go.”

Steve picks him up like a child, blankets and all. He sets him on the toilet, holds his hands and rubs his shoulders as he pees. Tony sits on the floor, back to the cabinets as Steve showers.He talks to Tony about what he wants for breakfast and how he missed the coffee machine at home and mindless things like that over the sound of the water. It all helps to pull back his scattered pieces. Steve’s voice, the smell of his shower gel and shampoo and shaving cream all mixed up into this one smell that is Steve and is  _ familiar _ now. It’s a thought that never fails to bring him back. That Steve and the things that belong to him are familiar. They have been together for that long and it’s still going. 

Despite all this. Even with all this.

He knows Steve will be done in a minute. He will help him next, to get clean because there is no way Tony can get in water right now. But also his boyfriend will not let him stay like this. They will curl up and Steve will bring food before going to sleep as Tony eats and slowly comes down from this bout of panic. He will not be able to sleep yet but Tony will get there. Steve will help.

They will make an emergency appointment with Tony’s therapist. And maybe their couples therapist too, to talk about dealing with times apart like this.

Because they are doing this thing where they get help and talk and don’t try to deal with shit all by themselves. This thing where they are open. They try.

And it’s not going to be okay right away. But it’s going to be okay.


End file.
